Ling Cod regs

[rjarnold]

The simple reality is that many people (especially those newer to the sport) find it difficult to gauge the size of a fish underwater, especially when there's not only a minimum size to worry about, but a maximum one also. Most people do their best to estimate, but no matter what there will be fish that are thrown back, every year, because the penalty for being caught with an under/over-sized fish is extreme. Obviously, it is partly the fault of the spearfisherperson that shoots the under/over-sized fish, but I also believe it is the fault of the governing agency that makes it extremely difficult to follow the rules. Our agencies should not be making rules that are difficult to follow, rather they should be making them easy to follow, and shortening the time and/or number of fish taken if and when needed.

The simple truth is that these rules are not being based on the reality of the situation (in theory, they're great), and as long as they're implemented in this way, fish will continue to needlessly die. I don't know what they're talking about when they say that these slots are "successfully" implemented in other places - I've been to other places, other countries, and where's there's a slot limit, spearfisherpersons have the same problems.

I'd actually like someone to explain to me why taking a 30" fish is better than taking a 22" fish, since I know which one contributes more to future generations...

[Seaslave]

Can you hear that??? DIng ding ding ding....... Opening day of Ling season.... Let the slaughter commence!

I heard it and I answered the call!!! Four divers, four Lings in the fish hold And a couple limits of prawns

All fish fit into the new "Slot Limit" but what a pain is the A$$!!! We all made our best estimation, but when it came time to pull the trigger, we really just got lucky...


-Mathue

[Maverick]

Im gong first thing in the morning

[Biodiversity_Guy]

The nine member state fish and wildlife commission voted to adopt the current version of the spearfishing rules.

The vote was 8-1, with the active diver in the group speaking out against the proposed regulations and being the only NO vote.

My guess is that the rule will be give serious consideration for amendment when it comes up for review again.

[whatevah]

Our agencies should not be making rules that are difficult to follow, rather they should be making them easy to follow, and shortening the time and/or number of fish taken if and when needed.

Couldn't agree more. In this case, they know it can't be effectively enforced for various reasons (including the shortage of enforcement personnel and funding). Still, it feels good - it looks like positive change to people who don't take the time to think the whole issue through, and it doesn't have to make sense if they can use it to pacify the very vocal and politically active angling groups. What really bothers me is that it goes completely against what should be the end goal - to make the most efficient use of the resource. Hard to believe that the state authorities are taking the rockfish issue seriously when they'll make some positive efforts in some parts of the regulations, and shoot themselves in the foot in others. There is no consistency, no real rhyme or reason, and they still don't get that all these areas are connected - area 4 is somehow distinct and has no impact on the rest of our waters apparently - so it is okay to close everything down in other areas and encourage the whole state to come on out and hammer the Neah Bay area. Ten years from now they'll be shocked and say there's no way they could have predicted the result.

I don't know what they're talking about when they say that these slots are "successfully" implemented in other places - I've been to other places, other countries, and where's there's a slot limit, spearfisherpersons have the same problems.

Don't feel bad - they don't know what they're talking about either. Other regulatory authorities have enacted slot limits, but they've failed to measure the impact and verify that they're being respected. Now it's the same in Washington - at least we can count our regulatory efforts as a huge success now - just like the other jurisdictions where they simply cannot explain where all the fish went.

I'd actually like someone to explain to me why taking a 30" fish is better than taking a 22" fish, since I know which one contributes more to future generations...

There are two viewpoints here. First there are the people who say we shouldn't harvest the biggest fish, since they're likely females who are very successful breeders. Then there are the people who say that the small fish need to be given a chance to reach maturity so they can produce also. Of course, one might argue that the smaller fish are the most populous, and they also have the highest natural mortality - isn't it better to harvest some small portion of the vast number of smaller fish? Most of them weren't likely to make it to maturity anyway. That's not necessarily my opinion, but it's a reasonable question I believe. On the other end of the scale, since there are fewer of the larger fish, fewer of them are harvested - and when they are taken, it opens up the prime habitat they'd been dominating so that other smaller fish might prosper. Couldn't this be the case? Does the slot limit not select against the males? The males that guard the nests? I have read some supposition (not really a solid study) that suggested that within a reasonable range, the size of the male does not affect the success with which they guard a nest. Well, I'm unconvinced, and at some point if the ratio of males to females is messed up things will go awry.

Lots of unanswered questions. My point here is that I think it's wrong to try to shape the population - it will always need correction, and we aren't monitoring it well enough to see when more corrections are required. It is best to just leave the size distribution alone, let it find its own balance point, and manage the overall population via daily limits and season lengths. I suggested using a catch card for Lingcod, but that was dismissed as too expensive and not yet necessary - better to pretend that a ridiculous slot limit on spearfishers can be enforced I suppose.

[Jaksonbrown]

The nine member state fish and wildlife commission voted to adopt the current version of the spearfishing rules.

The vote was 8-1, with the active diver in the group speaking out against the proposed regulations and being the only NO vote.

My guess is that the rule will be give serious consideration for amendment when it comes up for review again.

So let me get this straight... There were 9 people voting on this new regulation. 8 of whom are not divers or have ever been in the water, and are not spearfishermen. Basically voting on laws that they have no knowledge of, experience about, or education about whatsoever??!!!!.... and the only diver in the group, being the only educated individual with experience in the matter, speaks out against this regulation and the rest of you ignore him and vote it into law anyway.

What kind of morons are these people? Our government at its finest right here folks.
Just goes to show you, this legislation had nothing to do with the environment, saving the species, or anything else other than catering to special interests for political and personal gain.

[nwscubamom]

If you want to get things changed, here's a more effective way to give your input:
http://wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=may1110b

While writing a letter is good, and going to a public meeting is also good - being a part of a citizen advisory board is way more effective. You get WAY more than "three minutes" to give your views, you get to hear the input the fishing reps are giving, respond, and get the biologist's input too. It involves several meetings over several month's time period. It's worth considering.

Just a hint too: The angling community has had notices posted on their online forums for this board for weeks now...I would suggest one of you nominate either yourself or someone else and get involved!

- Janna

[pensacoladiver]

Not going to get into politics but in the military our folks who make decisions generally try to listen to their subject matter experts before making their decision. Sounds like, after reading bio diversity Guys post, there is some serious disfunction with the WDFW commission.

Hopefull this silly, unrealistic restriction on Washington spearos will get corrected in the future.

[WASP7000]

Can anyone tell me what WAC the new slot limit is covered under? The only thing I see for lingcod is Areas and Seasons (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=220-56-250) but doesn't say anything about a slot limit.


Edit. Nevermind, found it. (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=220-56-235)

[whatevah]

What kind of morons are these people? Our government at its finest right here folks.
Just goes to show you, this legislation had nothing to do with the environment, saving the species, or anything else other than catering to special interests for political and personal gain.

This is how the process works (as I have come to understand it):

WDFW accept proposals from the public and from within their own department. When the input period closes, the WDFW goes through the list of proposals and discards any they don't like. They then present the remaining proposals to the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the public. The commission accepts comment and testimony from the public. The law sometimes specifies that a citizen advisory board be formed, and the WDFW gets to choose these people - so they don't necessarily have to get input they don't want. AFAIK, these people report their combined thoughts to the WDFW, who can listen to them or blow them off as they please (correct me if I'm wrong about that, please). Then, the WDFW and F&WC meet, the WDFW presents a final list of proposals (apparently modified from what the public commented on if they wish) and the F&WC votes on each.

I would encourage you all to listen to the audio recordings of the relevant commission meeting...

http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meeti ... b0610.html

There was a lot of chuckling and giggling and much confusion on the part of the commissioners - it is readily apparent that these people are not familiar with the issues at all. I will give credit to David Jennings - we don't necessarily agree on everything but I know he works very hard to understand these issues and he does think outside of the box - and as the vote mentioned above shows, he is willing to stand as the only voice in opposition. The commission is supposed to be filled with people who take an interest like David does, so that they can present their informed opinions and effectively make debate. But the rest of the room asked some really pretty basic questions (and IMHO, they did not do enough questioning) - stunning that they could have so little background understanding on these issues so late in the process - I really don't think they care enough to bother getting informed before voting. They basically just sit there and pass whatever the WDFW presents to them. They might have been any random selection of people taken from a street in BF, Egypt. At one point David made a really interesting last minute suggestion that to me indicated he was looking at the bigger picture - looking further ahead and dealing with connections and realities. The whole room fell silent - nobody knew what to do.

I suspect this is the way it has always been done, and I am not surprised that we have a history of management failure.

[rjarnold]

I listened to just the first two thus far... Thanks for posting the links - very interesting.

I like the bit covered in the 2nd part - no take for unclassified marine organisms. There is no data whatsoever to support such a thing. I agree and am sympathetic to the fact that there is no data, so we don't know how the organisms are faring. But if that's how regulations are made, many things would/should be considered 'no take', and they're not. Like one guy mentioned, many of us 'naturalists' are probably guilty of collecting organisms that might die in the process. I, for one, had bug collections. This was an important part of learning biology as a child, and now I'm a taxonomist. Whatever gets children interested in their natural world should be encouraged, and we should be interacting with it, not just looking at it from afar. Touch, examine, dissect. Parents are encouraged to give their children the skills to determine whether something should be taken home or put back.

One guy mentioned that if every child brought in a dead frog, the classroom would be stinky, or something along those lines. Children could already collect unclassified marine organisms, and I haven't heard about mass stink clouds causing schools to close early, so why would they suddenly start now? Many children aren't exactly fond of slimy/stinky/weird looking animals, at least, not enough to collect one and bring it into the classroom. And yet declining populations of other species are allowed to be caught and eaten, doesn't that strike you as odd?

One other thing not brought up is the ability for people to eat some of those unclassified organisms. Perhaps they're not widely eaten, but some people might eat them - why deny them that opportunity while allowing everyone to fish a declining species of fish? And now I can't try a Lewis' moon snail? As someone pointed out, the governing agency isn't there to put rules on things that haven't been deemed necessary. That's just rude.

[whatevah]

As someone pointed out, the governing agency isn't there to put rules on things that haven't been deemed necessary. That's just rude.

Agreed. That's part of a department-wide shift in strategy - they want to move from a model where everything can be harvested freely unless otherwise listed in the regultions to a model where everything is closed unless specifically listed as opened. I suppose I can understand the sentiment, but I also know that they're able to institute emergency rule changes - so some kind of extreme harvest based on a sudden interest in a critter previously ignored doesn't have to be a problem unless they're paying no attention at all. I think it's a horrible case of over-regulation, and I said so in the letter I wrote and when I attended the meetings - I get the sense that the decision was already made within the department though. This latest round of regulations changes really were a terrific opportunity to make much-needed changes - unfortunately I feel that many of the changes that went into the regulations this year are simply for their own sake - they're based on incomplete data, they do not allow for any kind of feedback loop (no way to determine what really resulted), they cannot be adequately enforced (some can't even be reliably followed) and I think that many will actually have adverse and unintended consequences. To say that I'm disappointed would be a major understatement.